Seif Gaddafi captured in Libya

Hundreds of people crowded round the plane carrying him after it landed in Zintan,trapping him inside and raising fears he might suffer a similar fate to his father,who was beaten and shot after his capture a month ago on Sunday.

Seif al-Islam was later taken away uninjured and Prime Minister-designate Abdurrahim El-Keib promised that Gaddafis son would face a fair trial.

We assure Libyans and the world that Seif al-Islam will receive a fair trial8230; under fair legal processes which our own people had been deprived of for the last 40 years, Keib told a press conference in Zintan.

Seif al-Islam,who was arrested overnight,had vowed to die fighting but was taken without a struggle,officials said.

At the beginning he was very scared. He thought we would kill him, Ahmed Ammar,one of his captors,told Reuters.

Seif al-Islam told a Reuters reporter on the plane that he had wounded his hand during a NATO air strike a month ago. Asked if he was feeling all right,he said simply: Yes.

El-Keib,the incoming premier said Gaddafis son remained in the hands of the revolutionaries in Zintan and heaped praise on their fighters,acknowledging the authority the tribal militia continued to hold over its territory.

They the Zintan fighters will keep him in peace,take care of him. He will be treated as any human being with respect. He will get his day in court, El-Keib said. He said the detention was the crowning of the uprising that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi.

Ammar told Reuters that his unit of 15 men in three vehicles,acting on a tip-off about a possible high-profile fugitive,had intercepted two cars carrying Seif and four others in the desert about 70 kilometres from the small oil town of Obari at about 1.30 am 23.30 GMT on Friday.

After the fighters fired in the air and ground to halt the cars,they asked the identity of the passengers. The man in charge replied that he was Abdelsalam a name that means servant of peace. But the fighters quickly recognised Seif al-Islam and seized him without a fight.

The fighters said they put him at ease and he accepted that he would be taken to Zintan.

Seif al-Islam appeared relatively at ease and was not handcuffed as he sat on a bench at the rear of the plane.

Wearing traditional robes with a scarf pulled over his face,he had a heavy black beard and wore his rimless spectacles.

His thumb,index and another finger were heavily bandaged from the wounds sustained in the NATO strike.